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Very good player & flash drive

Kanguru might not be a name you know, I didn't know it either when I got my player. Their an American company based out of Massachusetts and they started out in the flash drive business later expanding to music players and external hard drives. My needs from a player were simple and few, a robust player that ran on AAA batteries (because they last a good while and cost stuff all), was light, easy to use and could hold a decent amount of data or music.

It certainly does all these things and it does them very well indeed. Quickly, easily and with little fuss or bother. It's easy to pick up and start using too and it looks pretty sleek with its black plastic & silver metallic cover. The product itself is shipped in a plain white box marked Kanguru MP3 with a little plastic window that shows the player inside. The side label reveals it to be a 2GB player and it can easily hold 500 songs.

Opening the box reveals a plastic holder with the player, a USB cable (can be used as an extension cable if you can't directly plug into a USB port), a registration card, instructions, installation cd, headphones & lanyard carrying strap. The player is shipped with a AAA battery (claims 10 Hour Battery Life) inside so you can use it right away. The player is just over three inches long so only just longer than the battery inside and USB port, it'll fit in any pocket as its not much thicker than the battery inside either.

Putting music or data onto the player is simple, just remove the cap on the base and plug it directly into a USB port on your pc (the player uses USB 2.0 but I am pretty sure it would also work on USB 1 devices). It will be detected as a drive and you can drag and drop data or music files onto it. It will play MP3 (at various bitrates from 32k right up to 320), WMA and WAV. It will also hold any type of data so can also be used as a flashdrive.

The cap that covers the USB port also allows you access to the battery cover, the battery can't be removed unless the cap is also removed so it keeps your battery secure inside. The front of the player has an LCD display and 1 single button which controls play, pause, on and off.

Press and hold play for a few seconds and the player will power itself on displaying a little intro screen of a man playing football (I've previously owned a similar player where this screen could be changed, if its possible to do that on this player I am yet to discover that function). The player shows all information on a small but easily readable LCD screen that comprises of 3 lines of data.

One side of the player has REC (record button), M (Menu) and track forward & back buttons. The opposite side of the player has lock/unlock button (prevents buttons being pressed whilst the player is in your pocket) and volume up and down buttons. The top of the player has a space to insert the lanyard cord if you so wish, headphone socket (a standard 3.5mm jack) and the microphone so you can use this as a mini recorder or dictaphone.

Pressing any button will cause the backlight to come on and stay on for however long is preset in the menu screens.

MENU SCREENS.

There are menus for:-Music (to use the player). Voice (to playback anything you have recorded).Record (record anything via the mic in WAV format)FM radio (allows you to listen to radio on the go, gives a fairly decent signal and good choice of stations as it can be set to auto tune into whatever it can find locally).Settings, contains sub menus which control:- Equaliser (6 Mode Equalizer allows a choice of Rock, Pop, Jazz, Bass, Classic or Normal) for different audio effects, Repeat (play a file more than once), Contrast (how dark or light the display is), Light Time (how long the back light stays on for - either always off, 5 seconds, 10 seconds or always on), Light Colour (the backlight can be set to green, blue, light blue, red, light green, purple, white or random), Auto Shutoff (how long before it shuts off if untouched - between not on, 2 mins, 10 mins or 30 mins), Record (set recording bitrate to 66 or 88kbps), Language (various European and Oriental) and Exit (return to previous higher menu).Info (shows how much space is used, and how much is free).Folder (shows a directory structure of files)and Exit which returns you to which ever function you were previously using.

To access the menu requires you firmly press and hold the menu button for a few seconds, this stops you accidently entering it. To power the player off merely hold the play button (it gives a nice "Power Off" and progress bar display before saying "See You" then displaying musical notes that drift off the screen as the player shuts off.

The player is compact, easy to use and gives very good audio playback. Battery life can be extended by deactivating the backlight and using the auto shutoff function so you don't leave it on by accident. It might not be a name you know but its worth your money.